


Strawberry Blonde

by xayahs



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Battle Academia (League of Legends), Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, background ezreal being thirsty over boys, cassiopeia is NOT a snake but she sure acts like one, childhood friends to enemies to friends to lovers, college partying and drinking and whatnot, ezreal and lux are besties, it's more rivals than friends but thats ok, just that the crownguard family is homophobic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xayahs/pseuds/xayahs
Summary: She remembers when they were kids, and they would meet in the tree at the park. The big one, the one Katarina would have to help her get into. They would eat snacks, talk about their day. If someone bothered them, Katarina usually pushed them out of the tree or gave them a black eye. It was easier, then. They would eat strawberries, and now Luxanna catches herself wondering how Katarina's lips would taste after sharing them again.--katalux childhood friends to rivals / enemies to friends to lovers! ezreal and lux are gay / lesbian solidarity, even if lux doesn't realize she's a lesbian (yet). this is how they fall in love, and how they navigate the intricacies of loving each other when their families would never allow it, along with the struggles that come with being a young adult in a college setting.mostly from lux's pov, but will change sometimes if i find it necessary!tags and characters will be updated as necessary!
Relationships: Katarina Du Couteau/Luxanna "Lux" Crownguard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Moving Day

**Author's Note:**

> just a setup chapter for now, honestly! expect a lot more from the next / future chapters <3

Luxanna huffs as she finishes setting down the last of the boxes in her dorm room. Garen was already standing there, hands on his hips, looking around the room.  


“Well!” He says, his voice just a bit _too_ loud for being indoors, “It looks like we’ve done most of the heavy lifting. You’ll be okay to settle in by yourself?” Her brother turns to her, heading towards the door.

"Yeah, I think I can manage,” Lux replies, trying to sound upbeat. Not that she isn’t excited! Just tired. It’s been a long day. She wipes sweat from her forehead and takes another glance around the room. She really has too much stuff, huh? She nods again, turning to Garen. “I know you have practice. Thanks for helping.” A smile in his direction, and he nods before he heads out of the room. 

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Garen tells her, already halfway out the door. The gesture is appreciated, but Lux knows she won’t take him up on the offer. She prefers her independence. Her brother closes the door behind him, and she’s alone with her thoughts. Luxanna takes a seat on the floor next to the boxes that should hold her bedsheets, towels, and some of her clothes. Might as well unpack those, so that at least she can take a shower and sleep, if nothing else. 

As she’s unpacking, a familiar notification noise sounds from her pocket. She already knows who it is: the only person it could be.  


_“Settling in yet?”_ Reads the text message from Ezreal, accompanied by a smiling emoji and an exhausted emoji.  


_“Kinda tired, but I’m working on it,”_ she sends back, setting her phone down.

Now that Ezreal’s messaged her, Luxanna already knows that he’s going to demand her time for the rest of the day. Might as well get most of her unpacking done now. She continues on, making her bed and setting aside some of her clothes for later. Slowly, the room starts to feel a little more… Hers. Her stuffed bunny on the bed, her clothes in the drawers, and her folders and pens sitting on the desk. Things were looking a little cheerier in here, at least! While she still had a few boxes of clothes and other miscellaneous items, Lux finds herself satisfied with the progress she’s made. 

And as though it were scripted, she hears a knock on her door. The door swings open before she can respond, and in strolls her best friend. Ezreal stands in the doorway, looking as though he hasn’t touched a box himself all day. Thinking about it, Lux concludes that he probably hasn’t. She looks up from her spot on the floor, and Ezreal walks further into the room. 

“I was almost scared I had the wrong room,” he begins, looking around, “ ‘cause I kinda had to guess. You were ignoring your phone!” Ever the dramatic one, Ezreal throws his hands up in the air as he speaks. “But I figured it out pretty easily. I guess I’m just that good,” he says smugly, as though finding Lux’s dorm room were a feat of any kind. 

Lux rolls her eyes, somewhat affectionately, at his dramaticism. “I text you which room I would be in as soon as I got the assignment,” she reminds him as she picks up her phone and stands up. A quick glance at the screen reveals that Ezreal did, in fact, spam her. She must’ve ended up tuning out the noises while she worked. Oops. 

“But who knows if they’d changed it between then and now, and I’d walked into the wrong room?” He counters, sitting down on her bed. “Imagine if I’d walked into that Noxian girl’s room. What’s her name again? Cassie?” 

“Cassiopeia?” Lux offers helpfully, raising an eyebrow. She knew quite a bit of the Du Couteau siblings, considering their families’ rivalry. And her childhood friendship with Cassiopeia’s younger sister, Katarina. Before either of them knew any better, really. Luxanna is reminded once again that this very well may end up being the first time she’s seen Katarina in years, and she finds herself hoping that it won’t be particularly cold or awkward. 

She’s struck from her thoughts by Ezreal once again. 

“Exactly! She’d probably poison me, or something.” Ezreal shudders at the idea. “So it’s a good thing that I’m a good detective. And a better friend. Dinner’s on me tonight. There’s a really good pizza place in town that we can go to. One of those places that doesn’t even have a website.” 

“That could be fun,” Lux agrees, looking around the room. The rest can wait; she’s getting tired anyways. “Let me shower and change first, though. I feel pretty disgusting,” she admits to him. Moving boxes definitely didn’t make her feel like she smelled or looked very good. 

“Sure, yeah. But not too long, ‘cause I’m starving!” Ezreal pulls out his phone to play on, or check his messages, or probably to annoy someone else. Luxanna isn’t sure, and she doesn’t really have the energy to ask about it too much right now. She picks up the towel and clothes she already set aside, and heads into the bathroom. She’s lucky (and rich) enough to get a room with a bathroom all to herself, and she relishes in that as she showers. This is the first time that she’s felt this much privacy, even in her own home. She relishes it, and steps out of the shower feeling emotionally refreshed, at least. Even if she is still exhausted. 

Ezreal is busy tapping away on his phone as Lux comes out of the bathroom, and he barely pays her any mind until she’s standing in front of him, ready to go. 

“Finally!” He exclaims, even though she’s fairly sure that it’s barely been twenty minutes. 

“You’re that hungry?” Lux asks, raising an eyebrow, grabbing her keys before heading to the door. 

“Starving,” Ezreal corrects her. “Watching those guys move all those boxes and then having to unpack them _myself_ was exhausting.” He steps out of the dorm room, his friend close behind.

“I can only imagine,” Lux responds dryly, locking the door. “It sounds excruciating.” 

“Mhm. It was.” Ezreal’s already back on his phone as he walks, and Lux is certain he’s going to walk into a door one day. 

A few moments pass as they walk, and when they exit the dorms into the cool evening air, she turns to him. 

“And where is this supposedly amazing pizza joint?” She asks him, and he leads the way. The entire way, he points out various people and places on campus; she knows most of it already, thanks to her brother, but she lets him talk. He leads them to the east side of the campus, across the street, and to the tiniest hole in the wall that Lux thinks she could’ve missed it if she blinked. It’s obviously a busy little joint, and it feels friendly inside. The walls are covered in writing from alumni, and it appears the staff encourages it. A dark-haired girl with what appears to be resting bitch face takes their order, and Lux notes that she looks like she probably goes to school with them. 

While they sit and eat, Luxanna lets Ezreal do most of the talking, and he seems fairly content with that. She spends the time thinking. Mostly about how she’s going to settle in during the next week before classes start, and concerned with her classes. She has a lot of expectations weighing on her, and she needs to live up to them. Beyond her family’s personal expectations of her, she’s also expected to outperform Katarina. She tries to push the stress from her mind as she eats, and tries to instead occupy herself with whatever petty internet drama Ezreal has decided to explain to her tonight. It’s fun, and more importantly, it’s distracting. 

It puts her at ease, for now. She spends the rest of the week occupying herself with organization, and making sure she has all the appropriate supplies for her classes. It’s enough to push away the more serious underlying stress, for now.


	2. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lux sees her childhood friend again for the first time in seven years, and almost immediately decides to shove her out of her mind. no point in dwelling on the past, right? too bad they keep running into each other.

Punctual as usual, Lux sits in the front of the classroom for her first class of the week. She’s already organized her things across her desk, and she’s ready for class to start five minutes before it does. That means she has time to look around the room, watch the other students as they come in. She enjoys people watching, she thinks, as she watches a rather tired, frazzled looking boy make his way to the exact center of the classroom. The second best place to be, and Luxanna’s second choice if the front row is ever full. She tries to take note of the faces as they file in, knowing that it will take her more than just the one class session to remember them all. 

And then, for a moment, time stands still. A face Luxanna could never forget enters the classroom, and the simple moment is so much more monumental than she expected it to be. She watches as her childhood best friend, the girl she’s now forbidden to talk to, walks right by. And her hair is longer now, Luxanna notes, but still as beautiful as it’s always been. She’s tall- strikingly so, almost. She stands a good 6 inches above Lux, easily; it’s a bit intimidating. And perhaps the slightest bit attractive, but she shoves that thought back where it came from. Katarina smells good as she walks by, like something indescribably _her_. Like patchouli, vanilla, and pure confidence. It happens in a matter of seconds, but it feels like Lux is staring at her for eternity. Katarina seems to take a seat a few rows behind Lux, and if she recognizes Lux, she doesn’t show it. The lack of acknowledgement stings, but Luxanna understands it. If the Du Couteaus are as ruthless as her parents have told her, it’s no wonder that Katarina chooses to ignore their past friendship. Lux herself has been continually encouraged to forget it, to move on. 

Class begins, and Luxanna finds it hard to focus as the syllabus gets passed around the room. She looks it over, highlights a few things, but knows she’ll have to reread it later as her mind wanders. She finds it hard to think as thoughts of her cherished friendship with Katarina floods her thoughts, and she wonders if they would still be friends today were it not for their families. Maybe not; Katarina was always testy, though that was more with people who weren’t Lux. Maybe they would still be thick as thieves, ditching homework to meet at the park on sunny days, climbing trees to talk about their week and ignoring the rest of the world. She can’t say, and she tries to cut off her train of thought by reminding herself that the hypothetical is pointless. They’ve lived their lives plenty apart for the past seven years, and it made no sense for Lux to drive herself crazy with what-ifs. She tries to wipe the thoughts from her head, and mostly succeeds from here. No more hypotheticals, no more wondering. She repeats this in her head like a mantra. Nothing can distract her from her academics right now, especially not the girl she’s supposed to be competing with. 

After class, Luxanna finds herself nearly rushing out the door. She’s gone before Katarina stands up, and she’s well down the hallway by the time the other girl is through the door. It’s almost lunchtime by now, and Lux decides that the best way to do that is to grab lunch and work on her homework. She doesn’t have a sizable amount yet, but she doesn’t keep up on her grades by procrastinating. Lunch becomes a decent looking wrap and fries from the cafeteria, but she already knows she can’t focus in there. She makes her way to the soccer field, which she figures should be empty at around this time. Ezreal’s soccer practice isn’t for another two hours, and it seems pretty empty by the time she gets there, setting herself up to work in the bleachers. Lux enjoys the outdoors when she works, the ambient noise of nature better to her than the artificial silence of a library. She finally finds herself fully able to focus on her work, rereading her syllabus and getting started on the first homework assignment of the year. She touches up her notes, as well, and she’s snapped from her concentration about an hour later. When Lux finally looks up from her work, she realize that the women’s soccer practice must have already started. She watches, half-interested, before someone catches her eye. She didn’t realize Katarina would be here. Her first concern is that it must look like she’s stalking her. Her seconds thought is reminding herself that it doesn’t matter. Luxanna watches, somewhat in awe, as Katarina absolutely annihilates the scrimmage match the team has begun. Once again, Lux’s work is forgotten in favor of Katarina. They’ve obviously been at it for quite awhile, judging by the way Katarina is sweating, and she’s tossed her hair up in a messy ponytail. It looks good on her. Her papers sit, forgotten in her lap, as she watches the soccer game unfold. She’s not entirely sure what’s going on, even though she probably should be; she’s been to too many of Ezreal’s soccer games as emotional support to forget what all the positions are called. But even if she wanted to remember, she’s too focused on watching Katarina move to think about anything else. The time seems to fly by, Luxanna focused intently on a sport she’s never once cared about before. 

She snaps out of her trance as the game finishes, and she hurriedly looks back down at her papers. Lux’s face is almost as flushed as the players when she realizes what she’s spent the past half-hour doing, and she suddenly finds her mind too scattered to focus any further on the work she’s brought with her. The field clears out in front of her, and Lux refuses to look up to see if anyone is looking at her. They probably are, she thinks, and that makes her glue her eyes to a paper that she’s finding it hard to read. 

Her head finally snaps up when she hears a familiar voice beside her, and she thanks everything above that it’s not Katarina, come to question her. 

“Did you come to watch practice, or something?” Ezreal asks, plopping down next to her on the bleachers. “That’s not very like you.” 

Luxanna shakes her head, gathering her papers together. “No, I came out to do some homework, look at the syllabus. I didn’t realize there was practice before yours.”

“Oh, yeah. Girl’s soccer practice is before ours on Mondays. Did it distract you or something?” He asks, looking at her as she gathers her things together. She tries to hurriedly shove them away, so that he can’t see how little work she actually ended up doing. 

“Uh, not really.” Lux pauses awkwardly for a second, unable to make eye contact. “I didn’t realize Katarina was on the soccer team though.” 

“You mean Katarina Du Couteau, right? Coveted soccer star Katarina Du Couteau?” He sounds almost incredulous that she doesn’t know. “Yeah, she’s on the soccer team! She’s one of their best players.” 

“It’s not like I keep up with sports, Ezreal,” she shoots back, and she feels a little guilty at the amount of venom in her voice. She softens up for a second. “I just didn’t expect to see her here, y’know? I knew she would be going to school here, but I didn’t think I’d see her so much.” 

“Chin up,” he encourages her, elbowing her a little. “You’ll get used to it. I’m sure, in no time, you’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just weird seeing her after all this time.” 

Lux nods as she puts her things in her bag; it’s a larger sized crossbody bag in a soft yellow color, with pink buttons. It’d been a gift from Ezreal years ago, and she’d replaced the buttons herself when the originals had worn down. She wants to believe that things will get easier, but she isn’t sure. A part of her desperately wants to say something to Katarina, craves some sort of acknowledgement for the things that happened between them. Another part of her is scared that she won’t get it. That she’ll be met with more blank looks, or worse: rejection. 

“C’mon, I still have some time before practice. These bleachers suck to sit on, and I can show you my favorite tree to sit under when I feel like I’m gonna die from too many laps.” Ezreal is pretty good at breaking the silence, breaking the loops in Lux’s thoughts when she starts to get stuck in them. She follows him, and he spends the rest of the time before practice talking about some cute boy in his new class. She doesn’t particularly follow, but she reminds herself to listen better later so she can give him advice. 

\-- 

The rest of Luxanna’s week is fairly uneventful, her classes going smoothly and most things going according to plan. There’s some advantage in being an organized person, she thinks, as she listens to Ezreal complain about how he’s already lost a syllabus for one of his classes. 

They’re walking through the hallway together as he complains, and he’s very obviously not paying attention to his surroundings. This isn’t exactly uncommon for Ezreal; usually he’s boisterous enough that people move out of his way, just to avoid his loud voice and dramatic arm movements as he speaks. Volume control has never been one of his strong suits, and today is no different. Lux herself is barely paying attention to where they walk, accustomed to people steering around them due to Ezreal. She usually keeps a better eye on their direction, but she’s currently a little more focused on her friend than she probably should be. Which is exactly how she misses who he crashes into until she’s looking at him on the floor. She looks up, starting to apologize, before the words catch in her throat. She’s staring, mouth open, and she wonders later how stupid she looked. 

“So you’re _not_ just this clumsy on the field then,” Katarina says, her voice dripping with disdain as she looks at Ezreal on the ground, and he’s gathering himself before he stands up. “You might want to try looking where you’re going; it would help.” 

Lux feels like her brain has stopped entirely and is moving a mile a minute at the same time. Before she can say anything, Katarina rounds on her next. 

“Hanging out with the heiress too, are we?” She asks. The question is directed at Ezreal, but her attention is on Lux. It’s intimidating. Her stare is cold, like Lux means nothing to her. It stings.

“You can do better than him, sweetheart.” The words come out like venom, and Lux can feel her blood running cold. She’s not used to confrontation, and especially not like this. She tries to form a sentence, but Katarina’s eyes are boring a hole in her head, and she’s making it hard to focus.

Ezreal stands up finally, and he looks fine; physically, at least. He starts talking pretty much immediately, as is his nature. 

“You don’t have to be such a bitch,” he says to her, brushing his clothes off. “You could’ve just said sorry, like a _normal_ person, and walked off.” He rolls his eyes, and makes sure nothing fell out of his backpack. 

“As I recall, _you’re_ the one who ran into _me_ ,” Katarina shoots back. “If anyone owes an apology here, it would be you. I could even give you some suggestions. How about, ‘I’m sorry for being a self-absorbed jackass who doesn’t watch where he’s going in the hallways’? That seems to cover about half of it.” She places her hands on her hips, and raises an eyebrow. 

Ezreal sizes her up for a second, and Lux grabs him by the arm. People are starting to stare, and this is not what she wants everyone to know her for. 

“C’mon,” she mumbles to her friend, starting to drag him away. “Sorry, Kata.” She doesn’t realize until too late, after she’s hurriedly shuffled her way passed Katarina, that she let the nickname slip. It’d been so long since she’d called her that, and Lux fights the urge to turn around and see if it garnered a reaction. She doesn’t turn around at all until they’re back outside, somewhere on the other side of campus. 

“God, she’s such a bitch!” Ezreal complains, as soon as they’re far enough away. “No wonder she doesn’t have any friends.” He rolls his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. Lux knows he’s going to complain about his now-ruffled hair in about ten minutes.

“Well, there you go,” he says as he turns to Lux. The confusion on her face must be obvious, because he continues on to clarify. “She’s awful, and rude, and you don’t have to worry about her anymore. You know exactly how she is now. You can just avoid her like the rest of us, and everything will be fine.” 

Lux nods her head, but she’s not sure she agrees. Right now, in the moment, she’s still a little too stunned to form a cohesive answer to give. Her emotions are all over the place, and she’s not quite sure _how_ she feels about what just happened, or how to place it. She finally does decide on something, and it’s that she needs to be alone. She tells Ezreal as much before walking off, and he looks after her with concern. He doesn’t push the matter, though. He knows better than that. She’ll come to him, in her own time. 

As Luxanna shuts the door to her dorm room behind her, she takes a deep breath. She sets her bag on the chair, and takes off her shoes. Her bed feels like the only security she has at the moment, and she takes comfort in the quiet of her bedroom. She holds her stuffed bunny to her chest as she puts in her headphones, and she tries to make sense of her emotions until she falls asleep early in the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's shown interest so far, i really appreciate it!! <3 it definitely helps keep me motivated. i can't give the most concise dates on when i'll give updates, but i'm doing my best to churn things out as fast as i can!


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